Orion my Dogo Argentino is magnificent. He was given to me by a neighbor the night before I moved to Villa Migelita.

He had 4 homes before he came to me. He is a very delicate dog, although he looks fierce. He has broken two bones, his skin is problematic and he is always needing attention by the veterinarian for some reason. Here are some of my favorite photos of Orion. He is now almost 8 years old. I have lived in Colombia since 2011. He was a young guy when I adopted him. Enjoy the beauty of Orion, my big boy.

I have avoided silence since January 31, 2010. The day my daughter was murdered. I have learned lessons, and I have worked hard to get to the place I am in right now. I feel free. I am free of abuse, I am free of negative energy in my home, I am free of judgmental people, free of machismo men who thought they could control me, I am free of everything that was keeping me confined to thought processes that were obsessively full of fear and sadness. When you lose someone suddenly this is normal. But what I did was not normal, I left my own country and changed my life completely. I will never regret my decision to do what I have done, I have evolved and I know another language.

New orchids that bloom overnight

I wake up to silence, not my iPad on a news station saying the same things over and over. This is how I would go to sleep since Misha died, almost 8 years now: cable news blah,blah, the same noise said again and again. Sad isn’t it? To think it took me 8 years to get to silence when I live in Paradise. The only sounds I should want to hear are the birds singing, the rain falling, the sound of music I put on when I make my coffee in the morning.

Villa Migelita Ecolodge

I could lay in bed on many days and not get up. I don’t allow myself this luxury. I know I need to get going and function. I have known this since the shock from the death of my daughter left me. I would not allow myself to fall off a cliff in despair. I would not allow myself to use as an excuse her death to become a sad human being, or to become filled with anger at her murderer. I used her death to better myself. But still I lacked silence. My brain would not quit.

I started this blog, I learned to take photos and use them to share the beauty I live in. To show my hummingbirds to the world, to show my flowers and a different way of life to all. It has not been easy but I have found the silence I crave inside my brain. With that all the photos and videos I take enrich me more than ever. They bring me to a place that I have been striving to find. Quiet. Pure and complete stillness of being, and sometimes that elusive happiness.

The hands of the old man are full of history, the face of the woman so interested in what is going on below her, the bridge I am standing on. The old man just sitting and watching. Wisdom, weathered faces, old wood rotting but still beautiful on the bridge. Beauty in different ways. I carry my camera and just wait for these moments. Moments that tell stories. Stories of life that we will never know, but we can imagine.

I came to Colombia to discover a new way to live. Life without a need for anything but my camera and my animals. I found this and more. I found out material things mean nothing to me, just give me a walk in the forest, a drive through a small pueblo, a random moment that I will never see again except through a photo I have taken. This is the way I want to live my life.

I just want to sit in an old chair and look for those moments where I find that freedom from caring about anything but living in the now. I am still working on this, but every day brings me closer to that freedom.

I am an American who moved to Colombia to find peace after the devastating loss of my daughter. I bought and renovated a Villa, am learning Spanish, and writing as catharsis. This blog will be like a book with chapters. Each blog will be about my life in Colombia and my adventures. I hope you will enjoy the many new discoveries I am making every day about myself and another culture.